September 2023

The Powder Room

One of my favorite sights of spring in the Sonoran Desert is when the birds have faces completely pancaked with saguaro pollen. When I finally got around to getting my first Nikon so I could do more macro photography I wanted to get a close-up of these large flowers, the desert’s powder rooms. However each saguaro blossom only lasts for about a day and I needed to find one on a day off when I was up early and with no wind and with a saguaro with an arm that bent towards the ground and was right next to the trail and which wasn’t covered in bees. It proved to be a tall order but on Memorial Day I was up before sunrise and found an obliging giant.

Due to some mix of the early hour and lack of practice and a general tendency to forget to setup the camera properly when I get excited, I left the shutter speed far too low and even with almost no breeze ended up with a little motion blur. Plus I should have stopped down one more stop so there would be less blur in the focus stack due to the large separation between stigma and stamens.

Nevertheless these shots will bring a smile to my face for years to come. As I wrote in my hiking journal while lamenting my mistake but hoping the pictures would come out: “It was great fun regardless”. The breeze soon picked up so I went home and got Bear and came back for a hike out to see the saguaro I call Witch Hazel, my first time seeing her in bloom.

Just a lovely day all around.

Bear the Spotter

I had four days off for the Labor Day weekend and not coincidentally Bear and I went on four hikes in the desert. After rain Thursday night on Friday I waited for a gap where the trails would have dried out but before the next rain showers hit. Temperatures had plummeted so I took Bear up to the overlook on Brown’s Mountain, as I didn’t let him do it all summer as I won’t let him do big elevation changes in the heat.

On the way down he paused for a while, I thought it was the expansive view as he does enjoy the view from up high. After giving him a moment I encouraged him onward as I wanted to beat the rain if we could. As we descended further he came to a standstill and it took me a moment but I eventually saw what he saw (or smelled): a gray fox peeking out through the desert scrub! A new species for both of us!

It was more Boo-sized than Bear-sized so I was glad it wasn’t scared of him (or me) and we were able to watch it for a while as it sauntered across the hill side, occasionally looking back at us before continuing on. What a glorious tail! When it finally disappeared into the hills we continued on down the mountain and arrived at the car as the first raindrops fell.

A Vignette

A quick snap from the spring of an owl atop a boulder with wildflowers blooming in the desert below. I was busy and didn’t look closely at the picture until much later, when I realized an owlet was also looking out. And it was months after that as I finally edited the picture I realized an antelope squirrel was running down the rock on the right. I took other pictures as we circled around the loop, some with compositions I like better or with softer light, but I love this little slice of life. This section of the desert has few saguaros and the wildlife is dominated by small mammals and those that eat them.

You won’t see Bear in the picture but I do, not only was he standing beside me but I only found this trail because of him, as it is the easiest to access from our house and a great place to hike with him when I’m short on time. So for me this picture is as much about a slice of my life as theirs.